More on energy balance

After the last post it occurred to me to wonder how the energy content on food is calculated. I can measure the weight easily but how do I know the energy that I am consuming. The major method is to read the label on the packet. This is not very useful for fresh foods, but there are (apparently) on-line sources that can provide the information.
But this only shifts the explanation back a step. Tracking back, further the best explanation I can find is from Scientific American which states:

The original method used to determine the number of kcals in a given food directly measured the energy it produced.The food was placed in a sealed container surrounded by water--an apparatus known as a bomb calorimeter. The food was completely burned and the resulting rise in water temperature was measured. This method is not frequently used today.

And

According to the National Data Lab (NDL), most of the calorie values in the USDA and industry food tables are based on an indirect calorie estimation made using the so-called Atwater system. In this system, calories are not determined directly by burning the foods. Instead, the total caloric value is calculated by adding up the calories provided by the energy-containing nutrients: protein, carbohydrate, fat and alcohol. Because carbohydrates contain some fiber that is not digested and utilized by the body, the fiber component is usually subtracted from the total carbohydrate before calculating the calories.

Which answers another question I had about calories which cannot be absorbed by the body and therefore pass straight through - e.g. fibre. As usual Wikipedia also has a good description.

And this is the simple part of the Energy Balance equation. The link between burning energy and losing weight is still opaque.
Which I suppose is the problem. This explanation is superficially simple, but once the surface is scratched there is a great deal of complexity involved. I don't mean just in the biochemical and physiological reactions taking place - that is expected - but in the actual correlation between energy balance and weight control.
So why is it so widely used when a mass balance would be so much simpler - to apply as well as to explain.

Thinking about it, the mass balance view is purely and simply descriptive. It is self evidentally true but provides no further insights since the "mass out" end is so tightly dependent on the composition of the "mass in" end. And once you get into composition, we start talking about energy content.
On the other hand the energy balance view attempts to provide a simplistic explanation as well as a description. It states a casual association - a body attempts to hold onto excess energy and therefore stores it, generally as fat. In other words - weight gain is caused by ingestion of too many calories. It skips over the source of the fat molecules and the elimination of metobolic by-products, as being a trivial aspect.

But I still think there is some benefit in considering the impacts of this "trivial aspect" of the whole process.

Nutrition and Conservation of Energy

Further to my previous post, I am working out how energy balance (calories in vs. calories out) relates to changes in body weight.
To explain where I am coming from: both energy balance and mass balance provide (different) holistic views of the human body as a system – with biochemistry and physiology providing the ‘zoom-in’ detail.
What I am trying to do is meld them all into a consistent mental model – at least for myself.
I still find the conservation of mass view easier to understand conceptually, but mostly I think because of the short cuts taken in describing the conservation of energy view. The latter is certainly a much more common approach.

 
Conservation of energy does, of course, apply to the human body. Energy into the body must match energy out: E(stored) = E(in) - E(out), this is a fundamental law of physics. The problem is how this relates to body mass - and especially body fat - since mass and energy are not interchangable in chemical reactions.
There is an implicit step in most discussions that is not called out - mostly I think since the majority of people don't care. This is the mapping of variables to aspects of nutrition. Hence:
* E(in) = energy consumed in food. This mapping seems self-evident - which, to a scientist, means it needs to be treated with suspicion. I can understand that there is little energy extractable directly from liquid or gas and so solid input can be considered the only source. Although dissolved solid such as sugar in water also need to be considered.
* E(stored) = fat, sort of. This is useful as a first approximation since other storage mechanisms, such as glycogen and tissues such as muscle have limited energy capacity - and are usually full. It is also the point where energy and mass are most confused. Chemical potential energy is stored in fat in the same way a battery stores energy. Or, since fat is created or destroyed as needed, more like water in a dam supplies hydro-electricity. The water is not energy but the water level can be used to estimate how much energy is being held
* E(out) = energy expended. This is the point where I have most trouble. There are multiple points where energy leaves the body and burning (oxidising) fat is only one of them. BUT, there is no weight loss at the time! The weight is not lost until the by-products of burning the fuel leave the body - things such as carbon dioxide or uric acid and other waste products. There is also energy which was never claimed by the body which escapes in solid form - food residues that were not fully digested

I think it is in the middle there that the talk about calories loses its traction. Weight loss is related to loss of substance, of material, from a body. Burning fat to release energy might be the underlying reason why waste products need to be removed but it is the actual removal of the "ash" that results in weight loss.
Most of the articles I have seen talk about the different ways in which energy is expended without ever discussing this final step in the process.

For a number of reason I still find conservation of mass a better way of thinking about the issue.
For instance - the way that waste products are removed nearly always requires water and so, while restricting fluid intake reduces weight in the short term, it is a very BAD approach for health - or long term results.
(BTW - thanks to Peter Attia for letting me work some of this out in his blog comments)

Logic and the Body Weight Issue.

Through a number of links my attention has been drawn to the works of Gary Taube and particularly his post on how the science should work. I haven't read in detail but this recalls my own confusion on the standard advice on wieght control.
As I have said before, the calorie in/calorie out argument is obviously incomplete at a very basic level. A calorie is a measure of energy - not weight. Hence there must be significant complexity involved in the advice that is being completely hidden. I can't see to get this message across to people around me; my wife is trained in bio-science and just says that of course there is complexity, but it is not possible to describe the physiology to the layman. Her sister was a personal trainer and seems to have swallowed the party line without analysis (along with an Atkins focus - after all, it worked for her).
They may well be right, but I can't just accept it at face value and it is almost certain that any hidden complexity is also likely to hide mistakes in interpretation.

From the beginning then: the basic physics principle of conservation of mass. Body weight must equal mass in minus mass out. I'll take this as a starting point. So to reduce weight one must decrease solid/liquid/gas intake and/or increase solid/liquid/gas outflow. As I understand it the major complexities relate to the tight dependencies between these - reducing intake automatically reduces output until there is no net change. This is homeostatis and is a good thing, if a little inconvenient for those trying to institute a change.
The input end of this flow is the point where we have the most control and I am not going to even suggest that anyone take direct control over their outflow (except in one specific case that I will get to later).

Many years ago I read the Hacker's Diet which had the following image:

which shows the relative importance of various forms of intake and outflow. At first blush it would seem to indicate that water intake is the most likely point of approach. But the volume of water in a body is relatively static (At least, it makes sense for it to be so, I am happy to be corrected). Additionally, it is the prime medium through which metabolic residues - the 'ash' from 'burning calories' - are removed.
Besides, look at the difference between intake and outflow in each of phase. Obviously significant water and carbon are coming in through food and but not going out in solid form.
Here's where I suggest a means for controlling outflow - get more exercise. There is a significant increase in liquid and gaseous loss of material from the body both during and after exercise. Personally I know that I can lose well over a kilogram during an intensive exercise session  - which of course comes back as soon as I re-hydrate. The take-away message being that rapid changes in weight are almost certain to be fluid related and short term.

I seem to have drifted so back to the original point. Control of outflow is difficult and potentially damaging depending on how it is done (I can't think of any healthy way). Control of gaseous intake would be almost impossible and is likely to have only minimal impact anyway.
Control of liquid intake is easy and possible and has the largest impact on total body weight. However, indications are that it is temporary, unhealthy and potentially counter-productive. The first I have mentioned already and the health issues with dehydration are well documented. With regards to counter-productive - apart from water being the medium for flushing waste products from the body, I understand that lack of regular fluid intake results in the body retaining water - hence leading to a higher base weight. I have only anecdotal evidence of these points but the arguments are reasonable.
This leaves control of food intake as being the most effective means of weight control. And recall that I am talking about the sheer quantity of food, not the calorie content. Having said that, it is almost certain that different types of food have different impacts on the body and how long the material remains.
My personal response to this is to (try to) stay with foods that are high in nutrient/weight ratio. By default this appears to result in a diet high in vegetable matter and meats - dense foods and low in carbohydrates which tend to be fluffy fillers. It is interesting how closely this replicates the current fad diets - albeit for different reasons.
There may be a vast amount of complexity still involved in how bodies process inputs and execrete outputs, but there is much that can be achieved through simple reasoning from some basic principles.

Global Economic Collapse?

Following on from the post of 7 Mar; first the disaster scenarios - the immediate
impact on existing institutions:
As shown by the financial crisis, world economies are on a knife edge - a rapidly thinning edge from what Paul Gilding is saying. Economic collapse is inevitable as basic resources run out and growth, the underlying assumption in many economic theories, is no longer possible. Something drastic needs to be done. And that something is already being done - as covered in Diamandis' talk. There are new disruptive technologies that completely change the game. The troubles is that changing the game at this stage and so quickly will invalidate the business model of a number of multi-trillion dollar industries. In this context - what does "too big to fail" mean? What happens to people employed by industries who's whole basis for existence have been removed? Hence economic collapse again.
Damned if we do and damned if we don't.

As an example of the impact of transformative technologies, it is only necessary to look to the internet itself. In less than two decades it has already has a disastrous effect on a number of long established commercial operations. The recording industry has been the most notable one - particularly due to the narrowness of their viewpoint and the collateral damage they are willing to inflict. But game changing impacts on journalism, education and retail are also in the offing, at various stages of development.

Consider then what will happen when other new disruptive technologies are added to the mix. Cheap energy and 3D printing spread the revolution to manufacturing most utility services. From there we can predict flow-on impact to mining and construction (through new materials) and transport (both people and goods). Further development of ubiquitous communication through mobile devices will allow abstract human interaction activities, such as finance, being brought back into the control of the individual.

The reaction from the internet impacted industry groups can be considered to be indicative of the sort of fight-back that may be expected from other corporate bodies once their justification for existence is called into question. The recording industry is relatively minor and ineffectual in this context (and their response has been ironically un-imaginative). What happens when the much larger Oil industry starts to find itself becoming obsolete?

[Sidebar: This has already started and has been going since the 1970's when the question of oil dependency was first raised. The continuing importance of oil to our culture and lifestyle shows how effective the response has been to date. However, it cannot continue indefinitely as supplies get lower. On the other hand, oil is valuable for much more than just fuel and the industry is unlikely to ever die entirely - as long as they don't kill themselves (exhaust reserves) in trying to remain on the centre stage]

New industries will come into existence and forward looking corporate entities will transform themselves to suit the new environment. Some, like Apple, may even manage to transform the environment as well (they still changed themselves but in doing so they defined a new market position to colonise). The question is whether these new entities will be able to grow into place fast enough to cover the removal of the existing ones - and also fast enough to protect themselves from the flailing death throes of their predecessors. The struggle for survival in the face of changing conditions will still be there.

Knowledge Management

This is a post I put up on our internal company blog. I have copied it here (somewhat redacted) mostly because it seemed an appropriate place to put it:

This follows on from my previous post on KM [on the internal blog] with some further thoughts especially with respect to the comments made by others. Forgive me if this starts a little abstract; I'm an architect and that's how I think about problems. It may also be a somewhat long and meandering - be warned.

First question when dealing with Knowledge Management is:- What are we talking about when we say Knowledge? [The second question is "why bother to manage it?" but I think that has been covered outside this channel and I don't intend to address it here].

As I see it there are two forms of knowledge that we are concerned about within our company (or any corporate environment). I will call these 'formal' and 'informal' for convenience; although the terms are not wholly correct.

Formal knowledge is anything which has been documented in some defined form. A file, be it DOCX, PDF or MP3. In other words a static artefact. These may change (sometimes at lot) but changes can be tracked and versioned if necessary.
This is the sort of knowledge that we are already managing with Sharepoint and it forms the basis of a true knowledge base. These are the known unknowns and we just need to work on the structure and process or management. Taxonomies of documents, storage locations, classifications etc all come into this and represent known problems in search of solutions.
For instance, I think that the IDT categorisation needs to be done as metadata tags. Mostly this is because almost any document will have an 'I' a 'D' and a 'T' value and may have (many) more than one. Any other mechanism is going to way too complex to be useful.
One other thing to highlight is that the prime capability that any useful knowledge base MUST have is searchability. Information will not be used if it can't be found and we don't need a write-only repository.
This sort of knowledge is literally the intelligence of the business and represents a sort of corporate memory.

Informal knowledge is the stuff that each of us knows which is not written down anywhere. At the extreme this includes stuff that we don't know that we know (an unknown known!) which is usually referred to by the overarching term 'experience'.
I won't be covering this - mostly because I can only see only practical way of formally managing it and that is already covered under the term 'mentoring'.
Informal knowledge is the diffuse information in our heads that no-one ever bothers to write down. It includes directly relevant information such as the history of a project, including the reasons behind minor decisions, past discussions and their outcomes - what has been tried and failed in the past, what has not been tried and why. Often this is critical in understanding the current position within a client, or ourselves and we rely on staff continuity to preserve the back-story.
Informal knowledge may also include 'irrelevant' details which may seem unimportant but, in reality, are a critical part of how we do business. For instance the politics within a client and the personal preferences of key stakeholders can make or break a bid, or even impact the perceived success of a deployment, but is considered too sensitive to communicate. Information about a small issue in application maintenance may turn out to be the source of a major pain point for a client but is considered too trivial to mention to the design team.
In short the informal knowledge consists of small pieces or snippets of information, inferences and deductions, hints and allegations; transferred through gossip and chatter.
Following the above analogy, this is the instinct of the business and, like any instinct, although it may or may not always be correct, it forms the very real basis for any decision.

To revert back to the original question - how is this sort of knowledge to be managed?
I don't think there is any easy answer, but the business need to be aware that the question exists - even if it cannot be fully addressed.
To my mind a good start is the Wiki approach. A loosely controlled structure where people are welcome to add, modify, correct or link small snippets of information would be a valuable starting point. The goal is to create a brain dump site to cross-link and consolidate the diffuse knowledge spread across the organisation with the expectation that it eventually resolves into something useful.

Obviously this process would require significant contribution from everyone and that itself is likely to be the biggest hurdle.

TED talks - intro to thoughts

I've just been watching some of the new Talks put up from the TED 2012 conference. The two contrasting talks but Paul Gilding and Peter Diamandis started the ideas flowing again and I feel the need to explore the implications.
Gilding covered the problem with finite resources in a world where economic theory encourages unlimited growth. Since the first is the immovable object, the second cannot be an irresistible force. The logical conclusion is that economic theory must fail and some sort of collapse is inevitable once this fact can no longer be ignored.
Diamandis talked about the promise of new technologies and things such as limitless cheap power, 3D printing and new active materials. These are game changing and subvert the concept of finite or un-reachable resources. Hence the immovable object can be moved and the theory may be irresistible.
My initial thought was that the introduction of new technologies could itself cause economic trouble. They will cause disruption to multiple trillion dollar industries and introduce global cultural change.
I added a comment to the discussion thread on TED:

I would think that the technology change in itself will create an economic crisis. The resource limitations are the driving force which require new solutions to be found. But even a relatively small change in technology can result in the complete upheaval of established industries.
Consider what is happening to the recording and publishing industries due to the paradigm shift created by the internet. Then think about the impact on power suppliers when everyone can get generate household power in their own backyards. What happens to the board of works when that power is used to extract water from the air.
The great abundance mentioned in Peter Diamandis' talk will completely destroy many major industries by making their core business obsolete - almost overnight too given current progress.
Even without the inevitable backlash from the entrenched powers, the economic impact on the developed countries would be disastrous. Places like Africa and parts of Asia may actually survive better because they are only a short way down the large scale centralised infrastructure path. Hence they should be able to leapfrog onto much more sustainable technology - if political considerations don't get in the way.

Further thinking keeps leading to other ramifications that I will need to work out in other posts.